The present invention pertains to cable carriers and more particularly to carriers for protecting and supporting electrical cable or hydraulic conduit and the like that is connected at one end to a stationary member and at its opposite end to a movable member for conducting energy to the movable member.
A variety of cable carriers are available for supporting electrical cable or fluid conduits between a stationary point and a movable member. Such cables are frequently employed in large machine tools where energy must be transmitted to a movable element of the machine tool. One characteristic that is usually desirable in this structure is that the carrier be bendable in one direction only. With this arrangement the cable carrier is capable of following a curve in one direction but the span of the carrier that extends through space from the top of the curve to the cable coupling is self supporting. Accordingly, such straight span of the carrier will not collapse to the support beneath it because it is unable to bend in this direction. Such characteristic makes the cable carrier self supporting along the straight span that extends through space. The span of the cable carrier extending from the other end of the curved position is supported by a flat surface such as the base of the machine or the floor on which the machine is resting.
One of the cable carriers having such characteristic is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,590,854 issued to Gordon H. Cork on July 6, 1971. The patent discloses a link chain type of cable carrier in which two link chains are connected to each other in parallel spaced relationship by bridges used the cables are carried on the bridges between the two link chains and remains exposed. This type of cable carrier is employed in the more demanding applications for carrying relatively heavy cables.
Another type of cable carrier possessing the above mentioned characteristics is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,957,084 issued May 18, 1976 to Jung. The cable carrier disclosed in this patent is formed of a profiled strip of steel wound along a spiral path to form a flexible tube for fully enclosing the cable that is being supported to thereby fully protect it from damage. U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,344 also discloses a cable carrier that incorporates the desired characteristics and fully encloses the cable. Moreover, this cable carrier is formed of molded links or segments coupled together to form a flexible tube.
The present invention also operates to fully enclose the cable, and it is formed of a plurality of molded plastic segments that are coupled to each other successively to form the elongated flexible tube for receiving the cable within it.